"EXPLORING MEXICAN CUISINE: "Abuelita's Kitchen" began as a short cookbook based on my grandmother’s Mexicanfamily recipes; many are over 100 years old. The recipes and ingredients have been modified to be healthy and accessible to the modern American kitchen. Both of my cookbooks are available on Amazon.com, third cookbook to be released shortly, based on baking. I created this blog to describe/depict how to prepare mexican dishes, It has expanded into covering all types of hispanic dishes.

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Well. Just six weeks ago my husband and I moved from one side of the country (east) to the southwest again. Now that the move is over fro...

Monday, July 16, 2012

Putting it all together

Life simply put, has been hectic lately.

My husband and I are in the process of moving back to our home in New Mexico from Alabama. It has been really a trying time to move piecemeal, take our dogs with us, find accomodations for all of us. Not being able to cook, eating on the road has taken a toll on me! I have just found my set of knives in the box we packed (due to the fire - more about that later in this post). Gained 8 lbs and desire to have a kitchen to cook in again.

Once I arrived in NM -- I was looking forward to being able to cook in my own kitchen. The kicker is that without proper utensils and pans, then having to prepare to evacuate our home due to little bear fire in New Mexico life dealt me a bunch of bothersome hurdles. So, we began our list of things to save, funny how while you may have possessions, it the things which you hold near and dear to your heart which really help you reset your priorities about what is important in life. So, we began our gathering phase of pulling together all our papers, pcs, personal belongings, and medications. Found a store room in a nearby town away from the fire and took our precious cargo there. Two days have passed since we arrived from a cross country drive starting in Alabama and ending in New Mexico. We suddenly we had to prepare our house for a possible evacuation due to a forest fire in New Mexico..

But, before I digress with photos of the fire way down below...let us review the basics of creating a miripoux, trinity, or as I call it a sofrito as it is called in Hispanic cooking.
First crush the garlic, add salt to the garlic and mince garlic, add your vegetables and sauté in a pan with olive oil mixed with butter or corn oil.
NEXT....Lets try to create your basic chicken and rice dish using the principles you have learned so far...

Lets put together a meal of Chicken and Rice with Borracho beans. Pull together the ingredients ( will add the recipe down below:

Add 1 Tbsp of Oil to your dutch oven, add 1 cup of long grained white
rice. Brown the rice over med-high heat until you can see the rice color
change to a nutty brown.

Crush Garlic in a molcahete, add cumin seeds and grind fine, you may add 3 - 4 peppercorns in the molcahete and crush with the mano negro. Add a little water to make a soupy paste. Add to the Chicken and Rice pot. Drop in the bell pepper and the Lime juice. Add 1 Tsp Pepper, the cumin and rice. Simmer for 45 minutes. Serve!

Delicious!

BORRACHO BEANS

For the borracho beans you need a few items: 1/2 to 1 lb
pinto beans, pinto bean seasoning or you can substitute a can of tomato
sauce, 1 tsp pepper (add salt after you cook beans), 1 can of beer, 1
peeled garlic clove per 1/2 lb beans, 2 slices bacon, water to cover the
beans up to 5" above beans. Save the chicken for the chicken and rice
dish.

Clean and soak beans overnight in 1 tsp baking soda, water in the crock pot of the slow cooker you will be using.

The
next morning rinse the beans 3 times, discard water. Add beer, and rest
of ingredients. Cook on high in the crock pot for 6 hours, checking the
water frequently and stir occasionally. Spoon out into bowls or on a plate and enjoy!